Why I love tragedy

We want to listen to sad stories because, even though all of us are sad from time to time, we’re surrounded by people who never seem sad in any way, and we’re desperate to reassure ourselves that our feelings aren’t abnormal or, worse, inhuman. If we ask one of our friends how they’re doing, it’s very likely they’ll say “Fine,” even if their grandmother just died. For many people (including me) this is problematic. Our interactions with other people feel inadequate thanks to this layer of unreality. We begin to wonder if anyone else feels sad, or if it’s just us. And if it is just us, then what’s wrong with us?

This is where literature comes in. I’ve read so many novels in which characters are threatened by tragedy, so when I encounter tragedy in my own life, I think of literature and, in so doing, contextualize my tragedy in the greater human experience. Sad pieces of literature reassure me that I am not alone. When I read comic literature, I laugh; but when I read tragic literature, I feel a connection with the author, the human race, and myself, which is ultimately a more satisfying experience.

It might seem nihilistic to suggest that tragedy is a more “human” experience than comedy, but I think this is absolutely the case. Consider how poorly comedies age. I’ve read some comedies from a few centuries ago and they’re rarely funny. Tragedies, on the other hand, are timeless. I actually cried when I read Hamlet. This timelessness could be based in this human need I discussed before, to meaningfully interface with tragedies in a world that pretends they don’t exist, or it could be based in something else entirely. I just know that we shouldn’t be ashamed that tragedies are core to the human experience. Tragedies have a beautiful element to them, and because we’re human we share in that beauty.

Now for the story. I’m not sure how to talk about mystery—you might say it’s a mystery to me—so I’ll begin by laying out what the mysteries are. We have a box that’s never opened. We have a wife who leaves suddenly, and her departure is somehow connected to the earthquake. We have a UFO. We have a woman meant to seduce the protagonist, for whatever reason. The deepest mystery is unveiled on the last page, when Shimao offers a magical explanation for the story’s events and Komura believes it because it makes sense, or at least it taps into his fears. I wanted to begin by addressing the question, is her version of events true?, but after rereading the story, I’m sure this question is unanswerable. I can’t find enough evidence either way. (Although I must admit that, if we dismiss the possibility of magic, it’s difficult to understand the story at all.)

Then I realized that the purpose of all this mystery might be encapsulated in this line: “Komura realized that he was on the verge of committing an act of overwhelming violence.” What matters is not whether the mystery is true, but how Komura responds to it. How it eats away at him and drives him to act irrationally. This is the human core of the story. Without this line, the story wouldn’t satisfy me. But the idea that the suggestion of magic, rendered plausible by the story’s mysterious circumstances, can shatter the protagonist’s psyche? That’s compelling.